Matt on Marketing

Act like an entrepreneur: Five key characteristics

2009-07-09T12:08:00.001-07:00

I briefly followed a Twitter conversation yesterday afternoon that attempted to define what a real entrepreneur is. It stemmed from one individual’s frustration that some small company employees considered themselves entrepreneurs, even though they did not own or start the company.

I wonder if it matters. Furthermore, I love the idea of employees – at big companies and small – thinking of themselves like entrepreneurs.

Forget about the technical requirements of an entrepreneur for a minute. What constitutes a set of entrepreneurial attributes that employees could emulate?

- Customer-Centric Thinking: Successful entrepreneurs are obsessed with their customers – what they want, how they want it, and their reaction/feedback to everything big and small. Successful entrepreneurs talk to customers every day to get feedback, build relationships, and help the customers themselves help evolve and grow the business.

- No Unnecessary Spending: Entrepreneurial employees treat every dime as if it were their own. Do we really need those extra printouts for the trade show? Is that marketing channel really working? Is it generating not just leads but sales?

- Creative Problem-Solving: For entrepreneurs, there is no box, and nothing is off the table. Entrepreneurs are attempting to do something no one has done before, which requires a new way of thinking and doing. It also requires bucking the norm, the creative “control”, and often going against what is known and understood. That takes guts and discipline to do day in and day out.

- Tolerance (or Immunity) To Fear: Fear, as I’ve said before, gets in the way of growth and innovation. Successful entrepreneurs know little to no fear, and certainly don’t allow any element of fear to cloud their judgment, creativity or courage to achieve what they know is right.

- Acceptance of Constructive Failure: Smart people actually fail a LOT, in part because they try a lot of things that aren’t yet proven. Not only do they try and fail often, they learn from that failure and get better – and never let that failure keep them from focusing on the ultimate goal.

If I had a company full of people who acted like this, they can call themselves entrepreneurs all day long.

Reaching new customers with LinkedIn Groups

2009-07-08T09:42:00.001-07:00

LinkedIn’s relevance not only as a professional networking tool but as an active social media marketing tool is increasing at a rapid rate. Among the various ways to network and reach customers on LinkedIn, the Groups feature offers significant, measurable opportunity for smart companies.

In a nutshell, LinkedIn Groups are opt-in set of individuals who share a common interest. There’s an extremely long tail of groups on LinkedIn, covering a wide variety of subject matter. Chances are, whatever market you’re in or product/service you’re selling, there’s at least a handful of groups on LinkedIn focused on it.

They may not all have thousands of members, but these individuals each represent not only a prospective customer, but an influencer who can reach others in their own networks – beyond the confines of the specific online group.

Using these groups to grow your own business won’t work immediately. This isn’t direct marketing with immediate response and revenue, at least not likely. To benefit from these groups, to provide value to other members and earn their confidence, respect and business, you need to take the time to become a respected, valued member of the community.

But with time and focus, LinkedIn Groups can deliver thought leadership, new customers and even new brand ambassadors for your business. Here are a few recommended steps to get started.

- Join relevant groups: Do several wide searches in the Groups section to see what’s available and relevant to you, and your business. Don’t think like a marketer or salesperson, think like a customer (and you’re the customer). Where can you provide value? For which groups do you have something constructive to add (not just a sales pitch)? Those are the groups where organic participation will be easier and more effective from you.

- Post articles of interest: Start building a presence for yourself in the group by posting articles of interest. Do not post articles from your own site or blog, at least not initially. Build credibility with the group and for yourself by offering purely educational and value-added content from across the Web that other members will appreciate. These articles will not only appear on the group home page, but also in email digests sent to the majority of members.

- Participate in discussions: Look for questions you can answer, or questions worth introducing to the discussion board. Be educational, and do not sell. Recommend ideas, solutions, other services or products beyond what you directly offer.

- Reach out to individual members: Once a member of a group, LinkedIn gives you the ability to send and receive direct messages from other members without either party revealing their direct contact information. If you see comments in the discussion board that could use a direct vs. group response, use this feature to contact the individual member. This is a great way to start building an individual relationship with a member who may be a good sales prospect, but do so based on providing value and earning trust.

- Invite your customers to participate: The best way to start introducing your product or service into these groups is not through you directly, but through your customers. Invite a handful of your customers to join the LinkedIn Group with you. Their engagement with other members on a variety of topics will give them the credibility to – when the time and context is right – introduce and recommend your product.

Four tactics for getting started with lead nurture marketing

2009-07-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

Earlier today the team at Marketo offered a great overview and comparison of Nurture Marketing and Closed Loop Marketing. Both are strong & viable strategies for more effectively managing different types of B2B leads through a sales funnel through to close. And Marketo’s right, nurture marketing is great but closed loop marketing is better, and typically generates better results by more directly matching sales touchpoints and messages to specific prospect intent and behavior.

But achieving lead follow-up nirvana is a long ways from reality for many organizations. A survey earlier this year indicated that a mere 10% of companies were actively using lead nurture strategies as part of their demand generation and pipeline management marketing. Even for those 10% of companies, implementing a more complex closed loop system may feel intimidating and out of reach.

But for the other 90% of organizations, going from whatever they’re currently doing (likely a variation of treating all leads equally) to executing a complex lead management strategy doesn’t have to happen in one giant step. For these organizations, achieving a strong nurture marketing strategy (let alone the next step to closed loop) should be seen as a multi-step process. Below are a few recommendations to start migrating to a better way of triaging and working leads, which should result in more opportunities and more sales over time without changing lead generation tactics or budget.

· Define an ideal lead, and treat them differently: Create a relatively simple definition of an ideal prospect, and start with two buckets – do they qualify or do they not? For example, does an ideal prospect need to come from a company of a partiuclar size? From a particular titled contact? From a particular industry? Set just 2-3 criteria, and start triaging leads accordingly. Even this simple first step can ensure your sales team is working with the best leads more aggressively (and treating lower-priority leads as such)

· Start a single nurture campaign for all leads: Sure, it would be great to have different nurture segments by industry, expected close date, reason the deal may be delayed, etc. But if you’re just starting out nurturing leads, start with a single nurture campaign for all leads. A monthly newsletter, or a regular Webinar offer, or even an occasional free white paper offer can keep you top of mind with prospects not yet ready to buy. Get complicated later, but get something going to those latent prospects right away.

· Establish qualification questions to segment leads into status buckets: Are you talking to a decision-maker? Does budget exist? Is there an internal compelling event to make a decision soon? These are questions you can ask in a lead registration form, a follow-up survey, or even in a call script your sales team uses. In any case, there are likely a handful of similar questions (no more than 4-5) that can be asked of prospects up front, recorded in your CRM system, and be used to triage leads further. If nothing else, your sales team will love having this data to manage predictability of their short-term pipeline.

· Be honest about expected close dates, and set sales team follow-up expectations accordingly: As new leads get contacted and qualified, get your sales team in the habit of establishing an expected close date. Your leads could fall into three buckets- immediate oppportunities, medium-term opportunities, and nebulous “future” opportunities. Understanding how quickly your prospect may make a decision can help determine the strength and frequency of your follow-up communication.

No plastic needed

2009-07-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

Urban Coffee Lounge in Kirkland, Washington - like a lot of coffee shops - offer pre-paid cards for buying coffee and breakfast treats. But this great coffee shop makes their card more customer-friendly by not requiring the card.

When you buy your first card, they put your name in their system. Just show up next time and give them your name (ideally with some ID), and they give you your coffee.

It's a tiny thing, granted, but it's one less piece of plastic I need in my wallet and it's a very customer-centric move. Smart.

How are you making it easier - and more convenient - to buy? Little things can make a difference.

The Key To Innovation And Growth Is Ignoring Fear

2009-07-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to Matt at SmallBizBee for including a guest post today I wrote on the subject of fear and risk - especially for business owners and entrepreneurs. Check out the short column here.

Build brand and sell more with effective storytelling

2009-07-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

Marketing has become more analytical than ever. We have at our disposal an incredible amount of measurement tools to evaluate the success, profitability and ROI of our efforts.

But those metrics can be a slippery slope. It's really easy to focus so much on the metrics, that you forget the creative. Focus so much on identifying the opportunity gaps, that your strategy for approaching customers in that gap is an afterthought.

I was reminded of this the other day when Jon Rimmerman from Garagiste was talking about storytelling. Jon started Garagiste to sell wine to his friends. His business? He sends emails talking about wine. If you want some, you reply with how many you want.

You can't buy wine on his Web site. His emails do not feature photos of the wine bottles. His emails tell stories about the wine - where it came from, its history, and not just how it tastes but what it's like to taste it.

Jon says the last thing on his mind when he writes his emails (which nearly 100,000 customers receive every weekday) is selling. Instead, he wants to tell a story. He wants to help the stressed-out executive take five minutes to relax and take a mental journey with him to Italy, or France, or Spain every day.

In the process, Jon sells a LOT of wine. A little less than $30 million a year worth, largely from telling stories.

Storytelling as an effective marketing tool is everywhere. Trader Joe's is another excellent example. While their competitors flood the market with full-color newspaper inserts that feature nothing more than photos and prices, Trader Joe's publishes the Fearless Flyer. Here's their own description of what it is:

The Fearless Flyer has been likened to a cross between Consumer Reports and Mad Magazine. We're not sure who said that, but we think they pretty much got it right. The Fearless Flyer is kind of like a newsletter, a catalog and a bit of a comic book all at the same time. It’s our chance to give you loads of interesting (hopefully) information about our products. And along the way, we like to toss in some witty (we try) tidbits and even a few old-fashioned cartoons.

Trader Joe's has created an intensely loyal following, with a unique set of products and unique marketing that focuses almost entirely on storytelling. It's different, evokes the customer's imagination, and it's effective.

All of us can do a better job telling stories - stories about our products, our brands, our customers. Math and analytics tee up the opportunity. To convert, you have to start talking, and what you say is as important as how you say it.

Where's that IT guy?

2009-07-02T06:18:00.000-07:00

In-house IT and helpdesk staff occasionally have the reputation of being rude, arrogant and inaccessible (not everyone, of course, but even Saturday Night Live thinks so).

So when an IT professional is the exact opposite, he stands out.

Take Ken DeMaria, IT Director for PayScale in Seattle. He's an incredibly busy guy, but knows his relationship with the rest of the company (not just those in IT and development) is important. To make himself more accessible in a very fun way, this flowchart is posted on his door. It explains his possible (sometimes likely) absence from sitting right at his desk, but also makes it clear he's accessible to all and happy to help.

How to build a list of your competitor's customers

2009-07-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

To gain market share, of course, you either need to bring new customers into the category, or get existing category customers to switch from your competitors.

Switching customers can oftentimes be faster and easier, as you don't need to sell the customer on the need for the category in general - just that your product is better, faster, cheaper or more effective.

Getting your hands on that competitor's customer list is another story.

But in today's world of empowered consumers armed with a plethora of online social communication tools, seeking out your competitor's customers may be easier than you think. True, getting the complete list may be next to impossible, but here are some tips for finding who's using "the other guys", and which of them might be ripe for a switch:

Set up a Twitter search for your competitor's name and product/brand names. You'll still need to sort through the press announcements and employee tweets to find the customers, but I guarantee they're there. Some are actively complaining. That's where to start.
Do similar searches in LinkedIn, specifically in the Groups and Answers sections. Same thing - figure out where customers and/or users in your category assemble, and find those who are talking about their experiences with your competitors.
Actively seek, search and participate in blogs and discussion groups that attract customers discussing issues (general or specific) related to your category.

Trolling and pulling prospects may be a quick way to use these channels to find "switcher" business, but each channel also represents a fantastic opportunity to engage the broader community of users & participants with your own brand, content and offers.

Simply starting a conversational presence in these places (to build credibility, not just to sell), is an easy and cost-effective way to directly target both an immediate and long-term stream of prospective new customers.

Do you have examples of successful switcher campaigns from the channels above, or other competitor list-finding best practices? What are you doing to actively find, engage and convince your category's other customers to switch to you?

10 Lessons Learned for Small Business Success

2009-06-30T22:32:00.000-07:00

I attended the fantastic first Small & Special conference this afternoon, with more than 100 other small business owners (some just weeks into their new venture) and several excellent speakers. The energy was palpable, and the agenda was inspiring.

It was clear throughout the afternoon that starting and succeeding with a small business involves a lot of hard work, but for nearly everyone that spoke it was a true labor of love.

Several themes developed throughout the afternoon, which I believe make up ten critical lessons or rules for succeeding with a small & special business. Here's what I took away:

1. Do What You Love (Follow Your Passion)
Fleurish was started with a $15K loan from a friend, and is now a highly-successful floral arrangement and consulting business. A gentleman whose business is laser engraving spoke at length about the history and usefulness of lasers, which culminated in a trivia contest about lasers for samples of his products. He's that passionate about lasers!

Moral of the story is to start and work on a business not because you think it's something that can make money, but because it's something for which you're truly passionate.

2. Past History, Education or Experience Doesn't Really Matter
Eric LeVine started CellarTracker.com without much experience or knowledge about wines at all. Just a growing passion for wine, and a knowledge of how he wanted to help other collectors organize their cellars. Rachel Venning now teaches sex ed in addition to operating four sex toy shops across the country, but admitted she didn't know much of anything about "that" (her word) when she started.

Others may know more than you now. But if you're passionate and willing to learn, it's your oyster.

3. Overnight Successes Take Years
The current revenue and margins for many businesses presenting today was impressive (to put it mildly). But most of those stories were preceeded by years of hard work oftentimes while still losing money or barely breaking even. Oliver Chin of Immedium spoke of hos important it was for his wife to have a "day job" to keep good health benefits for him and their two kids. Others spoke of difficult and lean early times (and early years) before they caught their stride.

If you're passionate and determined, you can get there. You just may need to be patient.

4. Be Open to New, Unexpected Opportunities
Joe Mansfield of EngraveYourTech.com stumbled upon an opportunity to do custom engraving on Moleskine notebooks. It was a new business like with hockey-stick growth until he realized the toxic PVC impact of lasering Moleskine covers. A promising, fast-growth business came to an immediate halt overnight.

Undeterred, Joe started experimenting with engraving on other media, including tech devices such as laptops and iPhones. He actively posts his new creations on Flickr, which generates significant new business on a regular basis.

Be open to new opportunities, especially when existing opportunities shrink or vanish. Your business likely won't evolve the way you think, but opportunities are everywhere.

5. You Can Start Now
Start it part-time. Several business owners spoke of doing research and starting initially during nights and weekends. Eric LeVine wrote code until the wee hours of the morning while keeping his day-job at Microsoft before deciding he was ready to take the plunge full-time.

Rachel from Babeland wrote a business plan, but really just got started. She said the advantage of "just doing it" gave her much better on-the-job learning, and better visibility into opportunities emerging in real-time. If you have a business idea or passion, start exploring it now. Do it for fun, start it as a hobby. You may be surprised how quickly you're ready to make it a full-time focus.

6. Ask For Help
Rachel had long admired a popular sex shop in San Francisco called Good Vibrations. She cold-called the founder to ask for advice, and that founder ended up serving as a quasi-advisor to Rachel and her partner as they launched and grew their own business. A successful founder helping a prospective competitor!

You'll be surprised who will help you - with advice, with their time, even perhaps with their products and services. It never hurts to ask.

7. Work With People You Love
Some speakers recommended finding a good partner. Steven Bristol from LessAccounting.com said his partner was critical to the success of the business, if for no other reason than they help each other "say no" to things they don't really need (helping them maintain focus and keep costs low).

What's more, working with people you love makes it fun! Andrew Bennett from Deneki Outdoors realized one day that he was working 50 weeks a year to spend two weeks a year doing what he really wanted. He now spends most of the year managing his fly-fishing lodges and working with people who share his passion.

8. Execute, Every Day
Jon Rimmerman from Garagiste talked about the importance of working hard, every day. You may occasionally hit a home run, but successful businesses are build from hitting a lot of singles. So, as the analogy goes, keep swinging. Keep a good attitude, keep your head down, and execute.

9. Embrace Competition
Steve Bristol loves competing against bigger brands like QuickBooks and Quicken. Competition is scary, he said, but it's important. When there's no competition, there's no market.

What's more, embrace your role as an underdog and you'll draw customers to you.

10. Focus On Your Customers
Last but probably the most important. Every single successful business speaking today not only had this as a central focus of their business, but they did it not as a proactive initiative but as a natural, critical part of doing business.

Jon Rimmerman talked about the conversation he has with his customers, not at them. He writes his wine emails (sent daily to nearly 100,000 recipients) as if he's writing a 1:1 correspondence.

Steven Bristol talked at length about the loyalty customers will have when you treat them right. Even if you screw up occasionally, loyal customers will stay with you if you treat them right. Make something people love, and you'll create long-term passionate users who tell your story to others.

Don't read this book

2009-06-28T21:51:00.001-07:00

Most business books take an entire 200-300 pages to make a single point. Oftentimes, the book’s length helps make the point with examples, case studies, explorations of different components of the primary point, etc. But sometimes, what you really needed was something short – just 2-3 pages perhaps to get the gist.

That might be why I liked David Meerman Scott’s new book World Wide Rave so much. It’s a relatively short book, with a focus on how to get our customers – your fans – to spread your ideas and share your stories with those they know. It’s an excellent treatise on how to create and drive word-of-mouth for your business or brand.

And what makes it even better is that you don’t have to read it.

Pick up the book and flip to a random page. You’re likely to landing on the start of a new, short topic that will spark your creativity. This book is full of short but powerful ideas, examples and inspirations related to spreading the word about your products and services virally.

When I first picked up a copy, I didn’t have time to dig in and read it right away. And thank goodness. Over the next couple days, I literally would pick it up every once in awhile and just flip to a page. Tons of great content and ideas in a short, easy to follow, quick-hit format.

For marketers especially, I highly recommend this book. Just don’t read it (at least not like that).

It's about customers, not technology

2009-06-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

Amidst a great post on social media execution strategies within large organizations, Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester reiterates an important point about what social media is really about:

"80% is Strategy only 20% is Technology. Eighty percent of social media success is dependent on understanding customers, defining an objective, and assembling the right strategy that encompasses: plans, roles, process, budgets, measurement, and training --not a focus on technology.

"The faster brands can realize that approaching social marketing and collaboration isn't about technology, but about process and change management the better off they are."

Don't call it a white paper

2009-06-26T13:36:00.001-07:00

Just heard a radio ad for an online university that offered a white paper to listeners as a lead generation tool. The content of the white paper, given the ad’s intent and intended audience, was pretty good. The fact that they called it a white paper, however, was off the mark.

The concept of white papers is more often seen in B2B marketing, but the idea of giving consumer product customers access to free, educational information isn’t exactly new. It’s just that smart marketers never refer to those offers using industry lingo. Instead, you’ll more often hear things like “special report”, “free money-saving tips”, and the like.

Even with some B2B buyers, the term “white paper” isn’t exactly going to resonate. For some audiences, IT buyers for example, an explicit white paper offer might work. For retail managers or small business owners, probably not.

Reminds me of a Subway radio ad a few years ago that literally referred to its customers as “consumers.” For internal planning, fine. For creative, never.

A lesson in transparency

2009-06-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

This post from Matt at SmallBizBee was humbling.

But my first reaction after reading it was actually, "Gee, my handwriting really is awful!" , followed by a re-read of how he had both interpreted and shared our communication exchange from earlier in the week.

Everything we do, say and write can come back to help us or to haunt us. Every element of our communication reflects and shapes who we are, and how others perceive us. This goes for communication outside your company - to customers, prospects, vendors and partners - as well as those you work with inside your organization.

It speaks to the importance of consistency and respect as much as anything.

Hiring (or firing) the right people

2009-06-26T11:30:00.001-07:00

Jim Collins has written extensively about who you should take into battle with you each day in your organization. He's written mostly about finding the right people, but his rules equally apply to ejecting the wrong people.

Take his list of criteria for the right people below, for instance. Think about the people in your organization right now who exhibit the exact opposite characteristics. Can you afford to keep them around? Isn't their drain on the organization exacerbated in this economy?

The right people fit the company's core values
The right people don't need to be tightly managed
The right people understand that they do not have "jobs" - they have responsibilities
The right people fulfill their commitments
The right people are passionate about the company and its work
The right people display window-and-mirror maturity (i.e. they give credit when credit's due, and take responsibility when things go awry)

Hyatt is trying too hard (why loyalty is earned)

2009-06-23T19:33:00.001-07:00

Going the extra mile for customers is a hallmark of great brands worldwide. The Ritz Carlton has become famous for it. More recently, so has Zappos.com.

Last week, Hyatt Hotels announced they'd really like to be known for doing extraordinary things for their customers as well. CEO Mark Hoplamazian announced a program called "random acts of generosity", in which the hotel chain will randomly pick up the tab for various amenities and services during your stay.

The concept is good, but Hyatt's trying a bit too hard. And it probably won't work.

Why is the Ritz Carlton known worldwide for exceptional, above-and-beyond service? Because it's core to their brand DNA, it's something they practice daily with every single employee, and it's something they've been doing for years.

Zappos.com has less of a history, but is equally committed to an organization-wide customer focus. Read anything from their CEO (or even their employees) and it's clear this is not a random or new initiative. It's just how they do business.

These are enviable positions, but they didn't come easy. They were earned.

Hyatt's not there. This program, ironically, could work the opposite of how they intended. Say you're sitting at a Hyatt bar, and the guy next to you has his tab picked up by the hotel as part of the program. You, however, are still paying. How does that make you feel? What are you going to tell your friends?

Even the guy who had his tab picked up can't guarantee his friends the same service when they next visit a Hyatt.

Stay at the Ritz, or buy shoes from Zappos, and the same high bar for customer service applies to everyone.

Hiring the right people

2009-06-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

Hiring the right people in your business is possibly the single most important factor in achieving success. Yes, external and other factors (some outside of your control) play a huge part too. But the right people can take those factors and make the necessary adjustments to help your business grow and thrive.

This point seems to have more consensus than the method by which you filter and evaluate those prospective hires. The book Topgrading, for example, recommends lengthy interviews to get at the heart of a candidate's true potential.

But Chip and Dan of Made to Stick fame argued recently the exact opposite point - that interviews are largely worthless (at least in terms of predicting future performance), and that work samples, job-knowledge tests, and peer ratings of past job performance are far more valuable.

Read here to see more of their point and a few examples.

I don't think there's a right answer leaning exclusively on either side of the argument, but focusing on work samples and the like first will likely serve as a time-saving filter on candidates that clearly don't make the grade, and weren't worth your time to interview to begin with.

Focus your time on the remainder, and you're far more likely to be speaking primarily with candidates who can make a difference.

How would you make baseball's draft more relevant?

2009-06-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

Major League Baseball’s annual amateur draft is this evening. The game’s best amateur pitcher in years is guaranteed to be picked first by the Washington Nationals. Several top draft picks could be playing for your major-league team in just a year or two.

Yes, despite other sports that receive weeks of hype and hours of TV coverage for their drafts, many baseball fans likely don’t even know that today is draft day.

Why the difference for baseball? For a game that has deeper roots than any other major sport, experiencing a surge in popularity and ticket sales in recent years, the draft is still not a very big deal.

Traditionally, this likely had more to do with the draft’s near-term impact on major-league clubs than anything else. In football and basketball, top picks are all but expected not just to make the team, but to contribute in their first year. Therefore, NFL and NBA drafts have a direct impact on the following year’s season.

Baseball draft picks, by comparison, have traditionally taken years of seasoning in the minor leagues to be ready for The Show.

But that’s starting to change, thanks to Moneyball and the way most big-league clubs are picking their amateur talent. With more and more college players chosen in early rounds (instead of high schoolers), draft picks are better seasoned and can be faster to rise to the major league level. Tim Lincecum was a top draft pick in 2006 out of the University of Washington, and won the Cy Young in 2008. That same year, Brandon Morrow was drafted by the Seattle Mariners from Cal and was throwing 100+ MPH heat in the Seattle bullpen the next year.

So let’s look at this from a marketing perspective. The relevancy of baseball’s draft on a big league team’s near-term roster has improved significantly. If you’re a marketer for MLB, how do you increase the draft’s fan impact? How do you use draft day to promote the game in general? How do you help market draft picks as the stars of tomorrow - both for the game overall as well as each major-league club?

Which team looks familiar?

2009-06-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this chart (click to enlarge) summarizing typical team behavior (especially at the executive level) for companies on their rise to the top, as well as companies on their way back down.

It's from Jim Collins' excellent new book, How The Mighty Fall, summarizing the traits of companies on their way up towards the pinnacle of success, as well as traits that typically symbolize an organization in decline (whether or not they know it yet).

You'll probably recognize behavior on both sides. Changing the "on the way down" habits in your organization can be difficult, especially if they're baked into the current culture. But hard doesn't mean impossible.

What are the things you could do - this week - to get your teams thinking, and acting, more like the column on the right?

Get people talking

2009-06-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

It doesn't take much to get your customers talking - to each other and to you. Just give them a reason!

The Tully's Coffee in Lincoln Square in Bellevue, Washington tapes the day's Seattle Times crossword puzzle on the bar where customers pick up their drinks. Cumulatively, throughout the morning, their customers finish the puzzle.

Along the way, they're talking to each other, engaging the baristas, and have a fun reason to keep coming back to that shop whenever they're close (there are literally seven other coffee shops within a 1/4 mile radius).

What are you doing to stand out (even a little) and get your customers talking? It clearly doesn't have to take much.

After the survey

2009-06-04T16:21:00.001-07:00

Let's say you do a survey. Customers or prospects. You're gathering satisfaction levels, testing a new product concept, messaging angles, whatever.

You get results. They're helpful - giving you product or messaging direction, indicating which customers really like you, which are really pissed, etc.

The vast majority of companies do nothing with that data. Some may make the product or messaging changes (a surprising number do not), but most miss the huge opportunity to respond (directly or indirectly) back to those same responders.

Let's say your customers send a clear message about something they want different. How do you let them know you've heard them? How do you respond, react and change?

A segment of your customers say they love you. How do you react? How do you leverage that love? How do you reciprocate that love to strengthen the bond between customer and your company, and encourage more of those evangelists to tell fellow customers and prospects about how great you are?

Most marketers focus their time thinking about the survey before the survey goes out. What are the right questions? In what order? How many? Are we sending it to the right people? What should the email say?

Few think about what to do after the survey. And that opportunity is far more important.

How to write a PR strategy

2009-06-01T16:28:00.001-07:00

Don’t worry about press releases, media lists, blogs, PR firms, any of that. At least not up front.

Building a PR strategy doesn’t start with tactics, it starts with business fundamentals. To write a PR plan, start with these questions:

Who is your audience?
What is your overall business objective/strategy with them?
What role do you need PR to play? What objective should it drive towards?
What message do you need PR to deliver? What action do you want your target audience to take?
What are the PR/communication channels available to reach the audience, and communicate that message?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you have the tools to start thinking about tactics.

Stories That Sell

2009-05-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

Your most important sales collateral? Case studies. No question.

Sure, your prospects care about what you do, how you do it, how it works, etc.

But what they really want to see is themselves - three months from now - ideally successful using whatever you're offering.

Without a time machine, the next best thing is to reading about, or hearing from, people just like them who are already using your product and love it.

The importance of case studies may be universal, but I'm constantly surprised how many sales & marketing organizations bury them amidst a pile of product brochures.

Casey Hibbard's Stories That Sell does an excellent job explaining how to build and use success stories throughout your sales & marketing process.

Rather than making success stories a part of your messaging, why not make them the star?

How well featured (or how buried) are your customer success stories?

Heinz Marketing featured on Start Up Nation

2009-05-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to Christine Haskell of social venture labs on Start Up Nation, who recently wrote a nice profile of Heinz Marketing and our “reason for being.” Check it out here.

Twitter for Small Business

2009-05-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

The role of Twitter for small businesses is evolving and changing fast, but there are now a handful of very good Twitter guides out there. Below are four of my favorites (including two specifically for the real estate industry):

DuctTape Marketing's "Using Twitter for Business"

Flyt's "How To Use Twitter for Business"

Real Estate Tomato: "Twitter Explained for the Real Estate Blogger"

AgentGenius: "Social Media for Real Estate 101: Twitter"

Digging deeper

2009-05-26T21:15:00.001-07:00

Plenty of marketers and business leaders make decisions without the help of data. And that’s OK, sometimes. Those who do so based on an educated guess or instinct, or simply to get something done more quickly, at least know what they’re bypassing to take quick action and ideally see quick results (or at least learn and react quickly).

But if you’re making decisions without enough data, that might be more dangerous. Pulling and using data to make decisions is good – just make sure you keep digging deeper so that you’re not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Let me give a quick example of what I mean.

Let’s say you look at your lead sources, and do some quick math to determine lead-to-close conversion by channel. By doing this math for a period of time tells you that paid search delivers a 4X better conversion rate than email marketing. So you get rid of email marketing, right?

Maybe not.

Let’s say you keep digging. Which emails did well? Which lists, which offers, on which days?

Similarly, keep digging into paid search. Maybe most of your search keywords don’t perform at all, but a small minority are kicking butt for you.

By digging further, you may save part of your paid search, ditch part of your email, and end up with just as many conversions but at a lower overall cost.

Data is good. Just make sure it gives you the full story.